My Miscarriage Story

Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. We lit 3 candles to remember our 3 little angels in Heaven, along with the many other babies that God called back home to Him. I imagined all the families that participated in this day of remembrance and thought that Heaven must have enjoyed seeing the millions of candles lit from up above. What a sight it must have been.

When my husband and I found out we were pregnant for the first time, we felt the way all first time parents-to-be would feel: extreme excitement, joy, and wonder at the miracle that had occurred. You don’t think about the “what ifs” your first time. You even start telling people, because you simply cannot contain your happiness. At 12 weeks we went to our first OB appointment. The nurses called us “mom” and “dad” and said their congratulations. The doctor wanted to listen for a heartbeat. She tried for some time and couldn’t find it, but that was ok because it was still early and sometimes it’s hard to detect a heartbeat through the doppler. She issued an ultrasound order and has us go to another office to get it done (they didn’t do it at that office). We had no worries at all going into the ultrasound.

When the ultrasound tech got quiet, I knew something must not be right. He just kept searching and searching and searching…for what? I didn’t know at the time, because he didn’t really explain anything to us. He just kept searching. Then he said he needed to get the doctor.

There’s no heartbeat.

There’s just an empty sac.

This is very common. 1 in 4 women miscarry.

I was told that my OB would call me and explain things more in detail as well as inform me of the next steps I needed to take. The only call I received was one telling me that I needed to schedule a D&C for the next day. I had no idea what that was or even what the heck was happening to me. It wasn’t until the next day, 5 minutes before I had to have this procedure done, did a doctor tell me what exactly was happening to my body, what happened to my baby, and why I needed to have a D&C. In hindsight, I would have asked more questions and perhaps even try to pursue other options. But, everything happens for a reason.

My next 2 pregnancies didn’t last as long as the first – I miscarried both at around 8 weeks or earlier. It still hurt the same.

My OB sent me to see an endocrinologist and they ran a whole bunch of tests to see if there could be something wrong with my reproductive system. They found nothing.

It took me a while to let go of the hurt I was feeling from each of these losses. My faith was weak, and so was my relationship with God. I could not understand what I ever did to deserve this. It was particularly difficult because no one I was close to had been through this before. I had no one to talk to, no one who could understand. People felt sorry for me, but they didn’t understand.

I actually turned to the internet for solace and searched for women who had stories similar to mine. I found so many. Just reading similar stories helped me to grieve and to finally heal. My relationship with God began to mend as I realized that all these women had found a purpose to their experience. I began to have hope that someday, I would, too.

Two years after our first miscarriage we became pregnant for the fourth time. At first, we braced ourselves to accept another loss. I was having lots of bleeding, and was almost certain I was miscarrying. I wasn’t even going to call the doctor, because I knew what was happening to my body. It was just like the others. I ended up calling just to make an appointment with the endocrinologist we had seen after our third miscarriage, to see if he could run some more tests. They asked me if I was miscarrying again, and when I said “yes” they told me to come in for testing.

And this time around, things were different. This time, my HCG levels rose instead of declined. This time, I let go and let God. I realized that things happen whether I want them to or not, independent of how much I prayed for something, how many good deeds I tried to do, or how I even lived my life. I was not in control. I had only been looking at my plan, without giving any thought to what God had planned for me. My heart was different this time around. And for some reason, this time, my baby made it.

Fourth time’s a charm.

I still get sad over the babies I lost. I think about them every day…I went so far as to have them tattooed on me forever. I’m happy to say that I did find the purpose to these trials, just like all the other women whose stories I read online.